If you have been following the blog, you will notice that it looks a little different. I’ve been working behind the scenes to make it “prettier”. When I started blogging, I knew very little about what it entailed but I decided to jump in and learn as I went. And that is what I have been doing. Researching and learning and testing and learning and getting frustrated and learning. I’m pretty happy with the progress made. It was necessary and important but it has distracted me a bit from the whole purpose of the blog which is writing. The fanciest blog in cyberspace is pretty much worthless if there is are no posts on it, right?

So that got me thinking about how easy it is to get distracted in almost every area of life. Often the things we get distracted with are good things that need to be done. But if we spend too much time on them or make them our main focus, we get off course of our true goal. How many times have you logged on to your computer to check your email and before you know it you’ve spent an hour on Pinterest? There is no doubt that I needed to work behind the scenes on my blog set up. It was necessary work. However, it is also necessary that I continue to write blog posts and keep adding content so that when you come to the site there is something new for you to see. It is all about priorities and balance.

Similarly, it is very easy to get distracted in our relationship with God. Today’s busy lifestyles make it very difficult to carve out time to spend reading the Bible and praying. But nothing is more important. We need to feed our spirit daily so that we are equipped to walk out God’s plan for our lives. How do we stay focused in this age of busy busy busy?:

Here are 5 steps to staying focused

Determine your goals/priorities

It is impossible to know if you are on track to reach your goals if you have not first determined what your priorities and goals are. Spend some time evaluating the things that are most important to you. These are your priorities. From that list, set goals to get from where you are now to where you want to be. Dare to dream big. Scare yourself. Don’t limit God. He can do more than we can even imagine but we have to dream and believe. The things that you like and dream about are things that He put in your heart. Let Him help you make your dreams come true.

Proverbs 29:18 (KJV): Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.

Plan

After you’ve set your goals, think about what steps need to be taken to make them happen. Even little steps move you toward your goal. But you must take steps no matter how small. Write them down and set deadlines for each step.

I’m in an awesome book club with a few of my cousins. It’s called The Goal Pact. We just finished reading a book called “The Compound Effect” by Darren Hardy. I highly recommend it if you feel like you’re stuck in a rut. The big take-away for me from this book is that the smallest actions done consistently over time will change the course of your life – for good or for bad. Are the things you’re doing moving to toward your goal or away from it? The choice is yours.

Isaiah 30:8 (KJV): Now go, write it before them in a table, and not it in a book, that they may be for the time to come for ever and ever.

Eliminate activities that are not aligned with your goals/priorities

Do your actions align with your priorities? If your relationship with God is a priority and spending time in the Word and prayer is a goal, do you get out of bed early to make it happen or do you hit the snooze button? When you are reading the Bible and praying are you in a quiet place or is the TV on in the background? If being healthy is a priority and losing weight is a goal, what are you eating? Are you making time to exercise? If your marriage is a priority and having a better relationship with your spouse is a goal, do you treat them with respect? Do you make time for one on one time with them?

I’m not going to lie, this part can be hard. You may have to make some hard choices and learn to say no. But the best way to reach our goals and our full potential is to focus on the things that are important to us and eliminate activities that are not aligned with our goals.

Proverbs 4:25-27 (NIV): Let your eyes look straight ahead: fix your gaze directly before you. Give careful though to the paths for your feed and be steadfast in all your ways. Do not turn to the right or the left; keep your foot from evil.

Connect with like-minded people to keep you accountable

It is so important to have support and encouragement. Not everyone will be excited about changes you are making in your life. Especially if they are one of the people you have to say no to in order to focus on your goals. Find others who have similar goals and dreams and connect with them. Look for people who are successful in the area of your goals and learn from them. Choose a mentor to follow.

Hebrews 10:25 (NIV): not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another – and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

Don’t get discouraged

Let’s be real. You will get discouraged. This stuff is not easy. If it were, everyone would be crushing their goals every day and living a dream life. Look around you. That is not happening. There are so many unhappy people struggling through life. Don’t let that be you. The dreams you have were given to you for a purpose. There are people waiting for you to achieve your greatest dream. Satan will try to get you to give up by putting doubts in your mind, but do not let him win! You are stronger than you think. You can do it. Just keep moving toward the goal, step by step.

Philippians 1:4 (KJV) being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ

Until next time, let’s get those goals!

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“One who is full loathes honey from the comb, but to the hungry even what is bitter tastes sweet.” Proverbs 27:7 NIV

Have you ever been so hungry that you did not care what you ate? You just wanted something – anything! I have. And in those situations I have not always made the best food choices. Gas station burrito, anyone? At the moment I ate it, it tasted GOOD because I was so hungry. But after I ate it, I didn’t feel so good and I begin to regret that I didn’t choose something to eat that was better for me.

My father-in-law, after a large meal will sometimes say “I don’t ever want to eat again”. That’s how we feel – full and satisfied. The thought of eating anying is far from our minds, let alone dreaming of a gas station burrito. However, in a few hours food starts sounding better and the longer we go without eating the more willing we are to eat anything that is available.

It is the same with our spirit. We must feed our spirit on the Word of God to keep it satisfied and strong. If we do not, it too will become hungry and will cause us to be desperate to find anything to feed the hunger. Bad relationships, alcohol, drugs, even overspending on material possessions are classic examples of spiritual “gas station burritos”. It may be good in the moment, but afterwards these things leave us feeling bad. In my own life, I have made some poor decisions trying to fill the emptiness inside.

There is only one thing that will fully satisfy our spirit and that is the Word of God. When we keep our spirit full on God’s Word we do not need to look for satisfaction or fulfillment from other sources. We can make good decisions based on what God says about the situation from a place of satisfaction rather than emotional decisions based on a desperation to feed the hunger.

Spend time each day reading the Bible. If you don’t know where to start try Psalms and Proverbs. These books are full of encouragement and wonderful wisdom. If you read 5 chapters in Psalms and 1 chapter in Proverbs each day you will read through them in one month! Another suggestion is to get a good devotional -either in book form or on line. Ask God to give you wisdom and revelation as you read. If we do our part, He will do his.

What will you do this week to keep you spirit full, fed and satisfied?

I like food. I like to cook. I like to eat. I like to grocery shop. Food Network is my TV channel of choice. Few things give me more pleasure than preparing a nice meal for people I care about. My husband and I are often talking about what we will cook for tomorrow’s supper before we finish with todays. I can spend hours reading through a cookbook. When the grocery ads come out each week, I can hardly wait to look thru them and plan my shopping list and menus for the coming week. Many conversations in the office at work are centered around recipes we’ve tried or heard about. I like food.

My mom was always into health food…before it was cool, she had studied the benefits of a healthy diet and taking supplements. If I would complain to her about an ailment her response often was what food, vitamin or herb I could take that would help. She understood the importance of putting good things into our bodies in order to feel our best. Over the years, I too have tried to learn how to eat properly so that I can be healthy and strong. The older I get, the more I notice when I eat badly how it affects the way I feel. I’m not sure if that is because I am paying more attention to it and making the connection or if it is because my body is more sensitive to the bad stuff – probably both.

Just like it is important to feed our bodies good food to stay healthy and strong, we must also feed our mind and spirit good things for it to be healthy and strong. You see, you are a spirit, you have a soul (your mind, will and emotions) and you live in a body. (I Thessalonians 5:23)

What are you feeding your mind? What are you allowing into your spirit by the things you read, watch or listen to? Are these things building your spirit stronger or are you feeding it junk food? We are bombarded with spiritual “junk food” that is designed to corrupt our mind and spirit. It is up to us to decide what to allow into our mind and what you will shut out. Last week we talked about taking control of our thoughts…controlling what we see and hear is a big part of that.

When I was about 16 I got a job at a local fast food restaurant. Until that time, I had led a fairly sheltered life. I attended a Christian school, my associations were mostly from school or from our church. When I started working I was exposed to language that was not anything I had heard on a regular basis. Not that I had not heard these words…I just had not heard them repeatedly for 6-8 hours at a time. It wasn’t long before I heard myself saying some of these words. My mind had been fed this foul language and before I knew it, little by little, that language started creeping into my vocabulary. What we are exposed to is what our mind will feed on, unless we recognize it as junk and replace it with good.

Pay attention to what you are exposing to your mind. You may think it is insignificant, but it is so important to take control of what goes into our heart. It is what you will end up thinking about and talking about. In the long run it will shape who you are. Do the things you’re feeding your mind line up with who you want to be? Take time to feed your mind with the Word of God. Replace the junk with truth.

Let’s start giving our spiritual food as much (or more) attention as we give our physical food. Let’s talk about the next thing we want to eat before we’ve finished this one. Let’s share our “recipes” with each other so we can all taste the goodness that we’ve found. Let’s do it on purpose.

Has anyone ever said to you “A penny for your thoughts”? They are trying to get an idea of what is going on in that head of yours. The truth is, our thoughts are worth much much more than a penny. They are very valuable. They shape our actions and our life. It is so important to think about what you are thinking about.

We have an enemy. His name is Satan. He is not a cartoon character with horns and a tail dressed in a red union suit and carrying a pitchfork. He is a real, evil force and his main goal is to kill, steal and destroy. (John 10:10) The main tool he uses to do this is to bombard your mind with negative, fear filled thoughts. Just because a thought comes into your mind does not mean it is your thought and it does not mean you have to believe it. You can choose (on purpose) to ignore it – just like you can ignore people when they talk to you.

Use the word of God to weigh you thoughts. If it does not line up with what God says…ignore it. When a negative, fear filled, worrisome thought comes to mind, replace it with what God says about that situation. Do not let the negative thoughts dominate your thinking. Put God’s word in your heart and use it to battle the enemy. This is called renewing your mind. “And be not conformed to this world but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is the acceptable and perfect will of God.” (Romans 12:2)

Contrary to what the Pat Benatar song says, love is not the battlefield – the battlefield is in your mind. We battle against the powers of darkness. (Ephesians 6:12) Jesus taught us how to do this. When he was tempted by Satan in the desert, the only responses Jesus gave were scripture. You can read about this in Luke 4: 1-13.

Renewing your mind and taking control of your thoughts does not just happen. We must spend time in the Word, learning what it says about our situation and then use it to replace all those negative thoughts. You will be amazed at what a difference it will make.

The first step to living on purpose is to understand that you were born for a purpose. Despite what you may have been told or what you have come to believe, you are not an accident. You are not a mistake. God created you for a purpose. He loves you. He is not mad at you. No matter how badly you think you have messed things up, it is not so bad that God cannot fix it. You see, He had a plan for you before the foundation of the world. (Ephesians 1:4) Before he formed you in your mother’s womb, he had a plan for your life. (Jeremiah 1:4) It is a good plan – a plan to give us hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11) YOU were on his mind from the very start. The second step to living on purpose is believing all those things.

You have a part to play in your plan and purpose. It does not just fall into your lap. You must live on purpose to find your purpose. And if you do your part, God is faithful and He will do his part.

When I was 18, I never would have dreamed my life would be what it has been. I think that is the way it is for most of us. When we are young and our whole life is ahead of us we imagine it to be perfect…and we should – we have our whole life ahead of us! I imagined how I thought my life would be, but I didn’t take any action to make it that way. Circumstances and bad choices altered the course of my life and I found myself raising 2 kids by myself, barely getting by financially and depressed. I had been floating thru life, not taking action to achieve the things I wanted and wondering what was wrong with me. I knew I was a good person, but my life did not show it. That was NOT God’s plan for me.

The good news is, my story has a happy ending! I’m nowhere near finished but I know it will turn out good. It is already good. God has done amazing work in my life because I made the choice to seek Him and to take action against all the negative things in my life. If I did it, you can too. It’s not easy but it is worth it.

Here is my challenge to you for this week. Look up the scriptures referenced in the first paragraph. If you don’t have a Bible, you can google them. Read them every day this week – at least once a day. This will help build your belief.